108 HOE..^ PAULINA. 



to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were it maketh no matter 

 to me, God accepteth no man's person,) for they who seemed 

 to he somewhat in conference added nothing to me" — he, 1 

 say, was not hkely to support himself by their decision. 



2. The epistle argues the point upon principle ; and il 

 is not perhaps more to be wondered at, that in such an argu- 

 ment St. Paul should not cite the apostolic decree, than it 

 would be that in a discourse designed to prove the moral 

 and religious duty of observing the Sabbath, the \AT:iter 

 should not quote the thirteenth -canon. 



3. The decree did not go the length of the position 

 maintained in the epistle ; the decree only declares that the 

 apostles and elders at Jerusalem did not impose the obser- 

 vance of the Mosaic law upon the Gentile converts, as a 

 condition of their being admitted into the Christian church. 

 Our epistle argues that the Mosaic institution itself was at 

 an end, as to all effects upon a future state, even with re- 

 spect to the Jews themselves. 



4. They whose error St. Paul combated were not per 

 sons who submitted to the Jewish law because it was im 

 posed by the authority, or because it was made part of the 

 law of the Christian church ; but they were persons who, 

 having already become Christians, afterwards voluntarily 

 took upon themselves the observance of the Mosaic code, 

 under a notion of attaining thereby to a greater perfection. 

 This, I think, is precisely the opinion which St. Paul opposes 

 in this epistle. Many of his expressions apply exactly to it : 

 " Are ye so foolish ? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now 

 made perfect by the flesh?" Chap. 3 : 3. "Tell me, ye 

 that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law V 

 Chap. 4 : 21. "How turn ye again to the weak and bog* 

 gaily elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ?'' 

 Chap. 4:9. It cannot be thought extraordinary that St. 

 Paul should resist this opinion with earnestness ; for it both 

 changed the character of the Christian dispensation, and 

 derogated expressly from the completeness of that rcdemjr 



